Nipsey Hussle, Ras Nebyu to perform live in D.C.

UPDATE 4/4/15: The Mailbox Money Tour is postponed to a later date in April 2015. Organizers announced that all online and hard tickets will be honored.

The LA indie rapper Nipsey Hussle and the DC native Ras Nebyu are set to perform live on April 4th, 2015 at Echostage in Washington D.C.

Nipsey Husslehip-hopvibe.com

Recently listed in Forbe’s Hip-Hop Cash Princes 2015, Nipsey Hussle has been making waves ever since he pocketed $100,000 in one day selling 1000 copies of his Crenshaw mixtape in 2013.

The 29 year-old Hussle has just returned from 18-date European tour performing his new record Mailbox Money.

Ras Nebyu, who opens Saturday’s performance, is also expected to bring some of his latest works. He recently released his new song “Time” in collaboration with 9th Wonder, a well known hip-hop record producer who has worked with artists like Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige and Erykah Badu.

The 23-year old Nebyu is the point-guard for a group of rappers called the Washington Slizzards, and has earned the title “The Uptown Ethiopian Tupac” among his followers for his mixtape Ras Griffin III and works like “Futuristic Black Man”.

The two rising artists — beside their common passion for hip-hop — share one other feature: they’re both East African on their father’s side and both born to American mothers.

Hussle, whose real name is Ermias Asghedom, is half Eritrean; and Nebyu, full name Nebyu Mahtemework, is half Ethiopian. And both feel the same about the importance of knowing one’s root and culture.

“If you don’t know your full-throttle history, the whole story of how you came to where you are, it’s kind of hard to put things together. That filled in a blank spot for me, as far as understanding myself,” Hussle told Complex MAG back in 2010, reminiscing his first ever trip to Eritrea back in 2004.

Ras NebyuLloyd Foster

Nebyu, who often rhymes about Rastafarianism in his songs, can only agree.

“It’s important to me because it’s everything I am.” admits Nebyu on an interview he gave back in 2012. “One must be true to himself always… So everything I do now especially musically is for young first and second generation African (not just Habesha) kids throughout the diaspora whether it be the US, Europe or wherever to feel as though the culture of their parents is “cool” and something to be proud of.”

Part of the Mailbox Money Tour, Saturday’s concert will also feature Abay Misganaw (on-stage known as Haile Supreme) and Kaleb “DJ K-Meta” Metaferia, both of whom belong to the Washington Slizzards crew.